Grilling Burgers This Summer Is Going to Be a Lot Cheaper

Just in time for your Memorial Day barbecue, ground beef prices have reached their lowest point in two years.

Retail prices for ground beef were just over $3.80 per pound for the first quarter of 2016, according to Bloomberg News.

A good year for feed crops has meant that ranchers need to spend less on feeding their cattle, and ranchers have been expanding their herds. Both of these have led to a bigger supply and lower prices for consumers.

And it isn’t just the drop in beef prices that could make your cookout cheaper this weekend. Bloomberg’s “barbecue index,” which tracks the prices of a basket of goods including ice cream and potato chips, has fallen in recent months.

There could soon be even more cattle out there. Bloomberg notes that the number of cattle being placed into feedlots was up 7.4% in April from a year ago, meaning that there could be another increase in supply in four to six months.

Why Germany Is Paying People to Use Electricity

On Sunday, May 8 Germany produced so much electric power that prices were actually negative. As in, customers got paid to use the electrical system.

The crazy high energy production was due to an especially sunny windy day in the European nation, meaning that wind farms and solar panels were able to make even more renewable power than usual, reports Quartz.

In total, 87% of the power produced in Germany was made at solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants during that day. The average percentage last year was 33%.

“We have a greater share of renewable energy every year,” said Christoph Podewils of Agora, a clean energy think tank in Germany, to Quartz. “The power system adapted to this quite nicely. This day shows again that a system with large amounts of renewable energy works fine.”

Germany is hoping to be on 100% renewable energy by 2050. Neighboring Denmark already sometimes produces more renewable energy than the nation’s citizens consume.

Why the Global Oil Glut Could Deepen in 2016

The world will store unwanted oil for most of 2016 as declines in U.S. output take time and OPEC is unlikely to cut a deal with other producers to reduce ballooning output, the International Energy Agency said.

The agency, which coordinates energy policies of industrialized countries, said that while it did not believe oil prices could follow some of the most extreme forecasts and fall to as low as $10 per barrel, it was equally hard to see how they could rise significantly from current levels.

The Paris-based IEA trimmed its forecast for 2016 oil demand growth, which now stands at 1.17 million barrels per day (bpd) following a five-year high of 1.6 million in 2015.

It cut its call on OPEC crude for 2016 by 100,000 bpd to 31.7 million bpd. That figure is much lower than OPEC’s January output of 32.63 million bpd.

“Persistent speculation about a deal between OPEC and leading non-OPEC producers to cut output appears to be just that: speculation. It is OPEC’s business whether or not it makes output cuts either alone or in concert with other producers but the likelihood of coordinated cuts is very low,” the IEA said.

Oil prices collapsed over the past 18 months to below $30 a barrel from as high as $115 as OPEC opened its taps to drive higher-cost producers such as U.S. shale companies out of the market.

Low oil prices have spurred global demand but it was not enough to absorb all crude produced. As a result, unwanted oil went into storage, leading to record global stockpiles of over 3 billion barrels.

U.S. shale oil output has started to decline because of low prices and OPEC has said it sees the market rebalancing sometime later in 2016 when demand finally meets supply.

But the IEA said supply may still exceed demand throughout the whole of 2016 and added it saw non-OPEC output falling by just 0.6 million bpd in 2016.

“The number could be higher of course and many senior international oil company figures have said so but there is a lingering feeling that the big fall-off in production from U.S. shale producers is taking an awful long time to happen. Perhaps resilience still has some way to go,” the IEA said.

The agency also said it saw the dollar remaining strong as it benefits from its safe-haven status, meaning more downward pressure on oil prices.

With weaker global oil demand, likely new gains in Iraqi, Iranian and Saudi output, low chances of an OPEC deal, resilient U.S. production and a strong dollar—the IEA said the global oil glut was only poised to worsen.

It said that even if OPEC production remained flat, global stocks would build by 2 million bpd in the first quarter, followed by a 1.5-million-bpd build in the second quarter.

“Supply and demand data for the second half of the year suggests more stock building, this time by 0.3 million bpd. If these numbers prove to be accurate, and with the market already awash in oil, it is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly in the short term. In these conditions the short-term risk to the downside has increased.”

No one (not even Janet Yellen) understands inflation

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is convening its penultimate meeting of 2015 on Tuesday, and there’s no shortage of Wall Street traders who’d love to be a fly on the wall at the Eccles Building this week.

That’s because there’s less certainty today over the direction of Federal Reserve policy than at any time since late 2012, when Ben Bernanke launched his controversial third round of quantitative easing. It’s widely expected that Yellen will emerge from the deliberations on Wednesday announcing that the Fed intends to keep short-term interest rates near zero. But what comes after that, at the Fed’s meeting in January and beyond, is anyone’s guess.

The Fed’s behavior—hinting at rate increases but never delivering—has even prompted economist John Taylor, a monetary policy expert, to assert that, “nobody knows what [the Fed] is doing.” In an age when the Federal Reserve is communicating more and more with the public, the public seems to have less and less of an idea what the Fed is going to do next. And there’s a simple explanation for this confusion: economists have a much looser grasp on what causes changes in inflation and employment than they’d like us to believe.

Economist Milton Friedman proved that, over the long run, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” He compiled data that showed that the rate of inflation correlates strongly with the amount of money in circulation. But in the short run, the economy doesn’t always cooperate with this theory. Case in point: the Fed has recently flooded the economy with bank reserves and yet this hasn’t led to banks creating, through loans, the kind of money that is used by consumers and businesses.

This has left the Federal Reserve with what former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke called last week, “really the only model economists have” for predicting inflation, known as the Phillips Curve. Named after economist William Phillips, it describes the inverse relationship between employment and inflation. Because labor costs make up a large portion of the cost of goods and services, it would make sense for prices to rise as competition for workers becomes more intense.

But the empirical evidence for the Phillips Curve is tenuous. This Wall Street Journal chart shows the relationship between inflation and the unemployment rate over the past 50 years:

Wall Street Journal

Neither Friedman nor Phillips’ theories can explain why inflation is so low in today’s world. Absent hard empirical data for what the FOMC should do, its members appear to be falling back on a combination of gut instinct and political bias to guide their decisions.

Take, for instance, a recent interview with Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo, in which he argued that delaying an interest rate increase is about risk management. He described himself as, “being concerned that a premature rise might be harder to deal with than waiting a little bit longer.” Tarullo doesn’t give any empirical evidence for this bias against raising rates; he just believes that the risks of higher rates killing the recovery are greater than runaway inflation. On the other side of the spectrum is the FOMC’s resident hawk, Governor Jeffrey Lacker, who argues that the risk of inflation spiraling out of control, as it did in the 1970s, is what we should be afraid of today.

Lost in the din of all these speeches, interviews, and board statements is an empirical foundation for the Fed’s decisions. This is not an indictment of the Fed per se. The central bank shouldn’t claim to have knowledge that it lacks. But it also shouldn’t be surprised that it’s failing to convince markets of its intentions when the theoretical basis of those plans are so shaky.

This is the retailer with the best back-to-school deals

Profitero, a leading global provider of e-commerce intelligence, compared online back-to-school deals for three top retailers — Amazon, Walmart, and Target — to find out which one offers the best prices, Forbes reports.

It examined almost 4,000 of the exact same products on each of the three websites. It checked the prices on August 18, around peak back-to-school purchase time, to get the most accurate information.

Amazon had the best prices, but only beat out Walmart by 1%. 91% of the top selling office products were available for free shipping through Amazon Prime, so the deal was sweetened for members who pay a $99 annual fee for that service.

Target lost by a landslide with prices that were 25% higher than Walmart’s.

The $1 million parking spot is here

The Wall Street Journal might have the answer. In cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Boston, parking prices have reached an all-time high, according to the Journal, with at least two new developments in Manhattan asking $1 million for a single parking spot.

“Condominium developers are touting parking spaces with glossy brochures and promotional videos, marketing the small patches of concrete as luxury amenities,” the Journal said.

Stories of a $1 million parking spot graced the Internet last year when the new development at 42 Crosby Street in Manhattan set that record, high-bar price.

Supply and demand in real estate has rarely seemed quite so pronounced—unless the asphalt is literally diamond encrusted. In which case, it will really go well with your brand new Ferrari.

In SoHo, Shaun Osher, chief executive of the brokerage firm CORE, which is responsible for the sales and marketing at 42 Crosby, told the Times in September: “There are ‘few to no options’ for parking, let alone a private spot in your own building.” He added that: “In real estate, location defines value and parking is no exception to that rule.”

With parking prices in major metropolitan areas on the rise—a parking spot in San Francisco sold, for example, at $82,000 last year—the amount of asphalt for us to share is dwindling, and building owners are cashing in.

Cattle theft on the rise amid record high beef prices

Cattle prices are now at a record high, which has led to a rise a livestock theft.

The crime, which is classified as a felony, is certainly not new. The Associated Press reports that the Texas State Penitentiary’s first inmate was a horse thief in 1849.

With beef valued so highly right now, thieves are trying to cash in cows. “Any time you see the price of any commodity go up, you see the theft of that commodity rise,” Larry Gray, executive director of law enforcement for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, told the AP.

Special rangers connected to the association worked 800 cattle theft cases in 2014, but almost 5,800 cattle were reported stolen at a value of more than $5.7 million.

The rangers use smartphones to take pictures of and identify suspected stolen cattle, but if the animal isn’t marked it cuts the chances of recovering it in half.

Punishment for cattle theft is quite severe. One man, Carl Curry, was convicted of stealing more than 2,000 livestock since 2007 and currently has 119 years left to serve in jail. Nevertheless, he is confident he will be released on appeal.

The park has been accused of charging customers more based on their country of origin. The Financial Times reports that French customers paid €1,346 ($1,486), British customers paid €1,870 ($2,065), and German customers paid €2,447 ($2,702), all for the same package.

The European Union has ‘single market’ rules in place in order to prevent this type of price discrimination.

Disneyland Paris has responded by saying that no illegal price discrimination has taken place — what we’re seeing in terms of these discrepancies has to do with promotional offers that the park ran in certain markets during certain times. The park argues that it was simply trying to attract guests year round based on national holidays in different countries, which is a legal practice, and adds that customers could request discounts that were promoted outside of their country to get the same price as other customers.

“When purchased directly with Disneyland Paris, the cost of a basic resort package — without promotional offers — is identical across all markets, give or take exchange rates,” a spokesperson for Disneyland Paris told the U.K.’s Independent newspaper.

Despite the reasoning, the European Commission is reportedly not convinced, given that it hasn’t found similar pricing practices by Disneyland’s competitors.

This is not the only incident of alleged price discrimination in Europe. Earlier this month, the European watchdog began a separate investigation of some of the biggest Hollywood studios accusing them of not giving all European consumers fair access to certain pay-TV services.

U.S. oil production reaches all-time high amid depressed crude prices

Domestic oil production has reached a new high of 9.2 million barrels daily, according to a new government report.

The total is the most since 1983, according to the Energy Information Administration, based on weekly data. It also matches the agency’s daily record set in Oct. 1973 that was calculated using monthly production levels.

The increased production follows a huge years-long drilling and fracking boom. Oil producers dramatically ramped up their operations to cash in on soaring energy prices.

But since the summer, the global crude market has collapsed because of a glut in production and lower-than-expected consumption in Europe and China. Since then, prices have fallen more than half, and ended the day Wednesday at below $50 per barrel.

In response to the glut, U.S. producers and oil services companies have slashed jobs and investment. Still, it has yet to fully impact production. On Tuesday, Halliburton said it would cut 6,400 positions, joining fellow oil and services firms Chevron, Baker Hughes and Weatherford International in implementing layoffs.

But the cuts have yet to completely curtail new production. In the latest week, daily U.S. production rose an average of 49,000 barrels to reach record levels.

At the same time, U.S. crude stockpiles also grew by nearly five million barrels to 417.9 million barrels for the week of Feb. 6, according to the government. That is well above analyst expectations.

Meanwhile, gasoline stockpiles rose by 2 million barrels, according to the Wall Street Journal. That gain went 200,000 barrels over analyst expectations, the newspaper said.

Schlumberger to slash 9,000 jobs as oil prices plunge

(Reuters) – Schlumberger Ltd, the world’s No.1 oilfield services provider, said it will cut 9,000 jobs, or about 7 percent of its workforce, as it focuses on controlling costs amid plummeting oil prices.

Learn more about some of the other effects of dropping oil prices from Fortune’s video team:

The company said it took charges amounting to $1.77 billion in the fourth quarter including impairment charges related to its seismic business, Venezuela currency devaluation and job cuts.

Schlumberger had said last month that it would take a $1 billion charge related to jobs cuts and the writedown of some seismic vessels.

“They did say they would be cutting jobs, but the magnitude of them is definitely a shocker,” Philip Van Deusen, an analyst with Tigress Financial Partners LLC, told Reuters.

A slew of global oil majors such as BP Plc BP and ConocoPhillips COP have cut jobs due to a nearly 60 percent slump in oil prices over the past six months. Brent crude closed at $47.67 on Thursday.

“If oil prices stay at this level, none of these companies would just be able to adjust with one round of workforce reductions,” Robin Shoemaker, analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets, told Reuters.

Schlumberger’s customers – oil producers – have slashed capital budgets for 2015 and reduced the number of rigs.

The Houston-based company said capital expenditure, excluding multiclient and project management investments, is expected to be $3 billion for 2015. Capex for 2014 was $4 billion.

“In this uncertain environment, we continue to focus on what we can control..” Chief Executive Paal Kibsgaard said.